Kahenraz wrote on 2025-03-25, 11:44:

You have to set the IRQ you the Solo-1 from device manager. There is a separate entry for DOS compatibility that gets installed along with the primary entry.

See here for a guide on how to configure the card.

Guide for configuring ESS PCI Audio cards for DOS (Solo, Maestro, Allegro, etc.)

Hello. I have seen this guide earlier and have some queries. Is the separate entry for DOS you are referring to the"DOS Emulation" for Solo 1 created under Device Manager? If so, yes, the IRQ was set at 5, port at 220 and DMA 1 using the Solo 1 VxD drivers. The issue is Windows doesn't allow me to modify any of these values. I get an error that the settings cannot be changed. Please let me know otherwise.

Now coming to the .sys and .com files, my understanding is that we need to use the ESSAUDIO.SYS under config.sys and ESSAUDIO.COM under autoexec.bat for the latest versions without renaming any of the files and disregard/remove the existing ESSOLO.COM under autoexec.bat and ESSOLO.SYS under CONFIG.SYS which are created while installing the Solo 1 card under Windows. Can you please confirm?

I followed the excellent guide for setting up an Audigy 2 ZS on Win 98SE with Audigy 1 drivers. Unfortunately pure DOS mode doesn't work. EMM386 causes a reboot.
Apologies in advance for the wall of text. I've already posted this to the Audigy drivers thread.

On this machine:
Pentium 4 (Prescott),
i865 chipset (GA-81G100MK),
256 MB RAM,
Creative 3D Blaster PCI (Rendition Verité V1000)
Onboard NIC enabled, almost everything else disabled.
Win98SE with 2004 security update installed.

I get this in pure DOS mode:

1EMM386 has detected error #39 in an application
2at memory address 3086:0160. To minimize the chance
3of data loss, EMM386 has halted your computer.
4For more information, consult your documentation.
5
6To restart your computer, press ENTER.

The Audigy works fine in Win98SE including the FMSynth in Win mode DOS console, but in pure DOS running SBEInit gets me this error, the machine won't boot with the emulator started up.

The board does support the right type of DMA (intel I865) as the video card runs in DMA mode. UMB PCI reports ISA-DMA(?) as working:
Config.Sys

1rem DEVICE=c:\DOS\LimitMem.sys 64
2DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:ON
3rem DEVICE=C:\UMB\UMBPCI.SYS
4DEVICEHIGH=C:\CD\OAKCDROM.SYS /d:MSCD001
5device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
6Country=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys
7rem DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF VERBOSE
8DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM /I=B000-B7FF VERBOSE
9rem DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE VERBOSE
10REM DEVICE=C:\CD\OAKCDROM.SYS /d:MSCD001
11REM device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
12REM Country=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys

Autoexec.bat

1rem c:\windows\command\mouse.com
2C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /D:MSCD001 /L:D
3C:\Dos\CTMOUSE\ctmouse.exe /R2
4mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
5mode con codepage select=850
6SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
7SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
8
9rem C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

CTSyn.ini

1[ctsyn.drv]
2OPLPort=388
3MPUPort=330
4SBPort=220
5SBIRQ=5
6SBDMALO=1
7SBDMAHI=5
8SBEnable=true
9JOYEnable=true
10Waveset=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\default.ecw
11PCIPort=0
12PCIIRQ=3
13JOYPort=200
14
15[SBEINIT]
16CONFIG=SBESET.CFG
17
18[SBESET.CFG]
19SBPORT=220
20MPUPORT=330
21SBIRQ=5
22SBDMALO=1
23SBDMAHI=5
24OPLPORT=388
25SBENABLE=TRUE
26JOYPORT=200
27JOYENABLE=TRUE
28WAVESET=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\DEFAULT.ECW
29PCIPORT=0
30PCIIRQ=3

Running Jemmex I get this:

1 EPROM at c000, size 32.0 kB
2EPROM at c800, size 32.0 kB
3System memory found at c800-cfff, region might be in use
4System memory found at f000-ffff, region might be in use
5Using page frame e000
6Needed: 48 kB for monitor, 64 kB for UMBs, 64 kB for DMA buffer
732 kB to account for DMA buffer 64 kB alignment
8I15: largest free block 785280 kB, free memory 785280 kB
9potential/max. VCPI memory: 785072/122880 kB
1028 kB needed for VCPI and EMS handling
11XMS memory block for monitor: 110000-14b000, XMS highest=2fff0000
12Memory Map: R/S=system ram, G=graphics, E=rom/rsvd, P=page frame, U/I=umb
1300000: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
1440000: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
1580000: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
16c0000: EEEEEEEERRRRRRRR UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
17Physical start address of EMS pages: 142000
18Total/available EMS memory: 2078/2048 pages (= 33248/32768 kB)
19JemmEx loaded

[EDIT] sbemu works with squeaky audio in IndyCar Racing 2, not at all in vQuake and very well in Nascar 2/1999.

My best guess is a resource conflict. Possibly with USB 2.0 ports, which seems to be very common with DOS memory problems on "newer" boards.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-03-30, 06:41:

My best guess is a resource conflict. Possibly with USB 2.0 ports, which seems to be very common with DOS memory problems on "newer" boards.

Ah ok.

Try disabling the USB 2.0 ports, if that is an option, and see if that fixes the problem. It's always best to turn off everything that isn't needed in the BIOS to maximize DOS resources. Especially on newer boards where PnP BIOS configuration cannot be disabled, all of these extra features are allocating precious system resources that end up conflicting with add-on devices.

My theory is that motherboard manufacturers assume that the operating system will be a non-DOS OS and they can gobble up whatever they want without having to worry about other devices that aren't going to be configured until after the OS boots.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-03-30, 15:53:

Try disabling the USB 2.0 ports, if that is an option, and see if that fixes the problem. It's always best to turn off everything that isn't needed in the BIOS to maximize DOS resources. Especially on newer boards where PnP BIOS configuration cannot be disabled, all of these extra features are allocating precious system resources that end up conflicting with add-on devices.

My theory is that motherboard manufacturers assume that the operating system will be a non-DOS OS and they can gobble up whatever they want without having to worry about other devices that aren't going to be configured until after the OS boots.

I'll try that, just as soon as I get hold of a couple of usb to p/s2 adapters.

sharangad wrote on 2025-03-30, 16:55:

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-03-30, 15:53:

Try disabling the USB 2.0 ports, if that is an option, and see if that fixes the problem. It's always best to turn off everything that isn't needed in the BIOS to maximize DOS resources. Especially on newer boards where PnP BIOS configuration cannot be disabled, all of these extra features are allocating precious system resources that end up conflicting with add-on devices.

My theory is that motherboard manufacturers assume that the operating system will be a non-DOS OS and they can gobble up whatever they want without having to worry about other devices that aren't going to be configured until after the OS boots.

I'll try that, just as soon as I get hold of a couple of usb to p/s2 adapters.

Didn't work. The USB ports are inactive, but powered. I wondered if it was the SATA controller and its mapping to IDE.

Disabled the SATA controller, the USB and the network adapter and tried booting off a FreeDOS USB flash drive with all the Creative files in place. Got a "Config error SBPort missing". MSD still reports a -32768 bytes of EMS. Tried MSD in Dosbox-Rendition and it reports -17,xxx bytes EMS RAM.

Well SBEMU works in some of the games I have, but not in others. For instance in Indy Car Racing 2 it's high pitched, almost as if it's playing too fast. Others like Whiplash don't detect it (probably because real mode support isn't enabled). Some of these DOS games don't work in Win98. vQuake doesn't either.

SBEInit at startup crashes the machine with an EMM386 error.

I've disabled everything except the smic controller and I don't know how to disable that.

Did you try IRQ 7 instead?

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-04-05, 13:12:

Did you try IRQ 7 instead?

I've reserved irq 5 in the bios and that's what the windows drivers set the blaster variable to.

If I don't do that sbeinit fails with an irq error.

Now it detects the audigy but reboots with an emm386 error. I'll try reservering 7.

The bios assigns irq 10 to the card. Does this have to be the same as the one sbeinit uses? I just assumed irq 5 was just for the emulation.

This card is Plug 'n Play. Reserving IRQs is generally something that is only needed for ISA cards. I believe that PCI cards need the IRQ to be "available" for it to be assigned correctly. You choose the IRQ through the driver configuration files. I think that by reserving IRQ 5 in the BIOS, you're actually blocking the Creative card from being able to request it. Maybe this is the source of your problem.

Try this, and also a combination of toggling the "PnP OS" option in the BIOS.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-04-07, 04:34:

This card is Plug 'n Play. Reserving IRQs is generally something that is only needed for ISA cards. I believe that PCI cards need the IRQ to be "available" for it to be assigned correctly. You choose the IRQ through the driver configuration files. I think that by reserving IRQ 5 in the BIOS, you're actually blocking the Creative card from being able to request it. Maybe this is the source of your problem.

Try this, and also a combination of toggling the "PnP OS" option in the BIOS.

If IRQ isn't reserved, SBEInit complains that IRQ 5 is in use. If it is reserved, I get the EMM386 error.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-03-30, 06:41:

I15: largest free block 785280 kB, free memory 785280 kB

The JemmEx log tells that your machine has 768 MB, not 256.
Might be worth a try to reduce memory to 256 MB - Emm386 maps all physical RAM in its address space, and, IIRC, SBEINIT intrudes into this space, so RAM size might indeed matter somehow...

Baron von Riedesel wrote on 2025-04-11, 02:17:

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-03-30, 06:41:

I15: largest free block 785280 kB, free memory 785280 kB

The JemmEx log tells that your machine has 768 MB, not 256.
Might be worth a try to reduce memory to 256 MB - Emm386 maps all physical RAM in its address space, and, IIRC, SBEINIT intrudes into this space, so RAM size might indeed matter somehow...

I have tried that. I've even tried limiting it to 64 MB using limitmem. I've swapped out the sticks, removed all but one including trying each stick individually in case it was bad/or had a timing incompatibilit. Nothing appears to work. They all fail in the exact same way with the same error message at the same address.

I've not had an awful lot of time to play around the past week and probably won't for the next two weeks.

sharangad wrote on 2025-04-05, 13:29:

The bios assigns irq 10 to the card. Does this have to be the same as the one sbeinit uses? I just assumed irq 5 was just for the emulation.

To the best of my memory, it should be SBIRQ=5 and PCIIRQ=0 (zero, acts as "auto")

PCIIRQ may be forced to some value (but never 5) for troubleshooting conflicts.

But why you have *two* PCIIRQ ?
The redondance of section [ctsyn.drv] and [SBESET.CFG] is not needed. One should be removed.

capitaine wrote on 2025-12-07, 18:24:

To the best of my memory, it should be SBIRQ=5 and PCIIRQ=0 (zero, acts as "auto") […]
Show full quote

sharangad wrote on 2025-04-05, 13:29:

The bios assigns irq 10 to the card. Does this have to be the same as the one sbeinit uses? I just assumed irq 5 was just for the emulation.

To the best of my memory, it should be SBIRQ=5 and PCIIRQ=0 (zero, acts as "auto")

PCIIRQ may be forced to some value (but never 5) for troubleshooting conflicts.

But why you have *two* PCIIRQ ?
The redondance of section [ctsyn.drv] and [SBESET.CFG] is not needed. One should be removed.

I got this working by disabling USB and using IDE adapters for the drives, but forgot to update the thread. I did have to reserve IRQ 5 for sbeinit.exe. I left everything else at default (cfgs and stuff). I do have another issue now though, static, which is noticeable in some games, but not others.

LSS10999 wrote on 2010-05-11, 14:38:

There are several sound cards capable of having (near) authentic FM synth. 1. Yamaha YMF7x4 Yamaha sound cards have a genuine YM […]
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There are several sound cards capable of having (near) authentic FM synth.
1. Yamaha YMF7x4
Yamaha sound cards have a genuine YMF289 integrated.
These cards need PC-PCI or DDMA to work. Since SETUPDS actively tries to determine what southbridge you're using, for newer chipsets like VT82C686A/B the program needs to be hex-edited to make it usable.
For some newer chipsets (ICH6 and onwards) Kamerat successfully managed to get DSDMA working for SFX. However, it seems one needs a chipset that has native PCI slots for it to work correctly (PCIe-PCI bridges do not count).

PS: During my experiments with NT 3.51, it seems YMF7x4's NT4 drivers (compatible with NT3) also requires the legacy part of the sound card to be initialized in order to function. Since the legacy part cannot be initialized on newer motherboards, the driver failed to install/run with an error code.

2. ESS Solo-1
This is arguably the best in terms of compatibility. It works on all VIA chipsets including the later ones that no longer support DDMA (it uses TDMA which works in that particular occasion).
ESS Solo-1 is the last to include ESFM, which is nearly authentic. The music track "One Mustn't Fall" from Tyrian is the only part that I ever heard some differences compared to genuine OPL3.
On other newer chipsets (ICH6 and onwards, nForce, etc.) only FM synth works.

3. Fortemedia FM-801
Depending on versions, the one I got had authentic FM that I can't really distinguish with the genuine ones.
It can work with VIA chipsets including later ones, but it doesn't appear to be as compatible as I had more crashes.

4. Avance Logic ALS4000 (and maybe other related ones)
I haven't tested this card for DOS, but it's a good card with authentic FM synth and the synth can be used in Windows NT 3.51 as well.
From the information it appears the card mainly uses DDMA.

5. Sound Blaster Live!
Apparently Live! and maybe Audigy have authentic FM with its SB16 emulation compared to the predecessors (Ensoniq AudioPCI).
The emulation uses different approaches and I only tested this with very old boards up to i815 and it works okay there.
NOTE: The emulation TSR requires MS EMM386 and you probably need to make sure there are enough free memory in the sub-4MB range or it'll complain.

Here are some other cards whose FM may not sound as authentic as a genuine OPL3.
1. Aureal Vortex series
The FM synth in these cards are not authentic and can sound a bit off-pitch.
However, these cards are the only one known to work just fine with motherboards using ICH6 and onwards, at least in case of Aureal Vortex (AU8820).

2. Ensoniq AudioPCI (Sound Blaster PCI64/128)
These predecessors of Sound Blaster Live! utilizes the same emulation mechanism which Live! still uses.
However, these cards do not have authentic FM and is instead emulated through ECW wavetables, and could sound quite weird.

3. Crystal Semiconductor Sound Cards
At one point I tried a card with Crystal sound chip for a brief while.
Its FM can work after loading the TSR but I didn't test it in detail as its FM synth was not authentic (a bit high-pitched). I think the compatibility was similar to other ones.

4. ESS Maestro/Allegro/Canyon3D
These cards are equally compatible as ESS Solo-1 but no longer features real ESFM synth and use wavetables instead, which is not quite authentic.

[/details]

The SB Live! SB16 emulation is pure software, so there's no hardware FM there. And, the ES range under Creative are not predecessors - development of those continued in parallel to SB Live for several years.

PCI cards with hardware FM include Trident 4Wave and S3 Sonic Vibes. I don't have a genuine Yamaha to compare with.

MattRocks wrote on 2025-12-10, 21:17:

The SB Live! SB16 emulation is pure software, so there's no hardware FM there. And, the ES range under Creative are not predecessors - development of those continued in parallel to SB Live for several years.

PCI cards with hardware FM include Trident 4Wave and S3 Sonic Vibes. I don't have a genuine Yamaha to compare with.

Ensoniq AudioPCI or Creative SBPCI simply emulated FM from ECW and it sounded very different, that it's better to use General MIDI whenever possible with these cards. Using different ECWs (2M/4M/8M) as well as switching GM/MT32 mode will change how FM sounds there.

SBLive! had only a "default.ecw" as opposed to AudioPCI's 2M/4M/8M ECWs, yet it somehow produced authentic FM from what I tested.

Still, SBPCI/Live! DOS support (SBINIT/SBEINIT) is the most restrictive AFAICT. Need compatible board and chipset, as well as MS EMM386.

The most recent pre-release of JEMM (5.86pre2) added support for SBINIT/SBEINIT support with its SB option. However, you still need to have a compatible chipset for that to work.

I've been looking at SBEMU/VSBHDA for a while. Despite the achievements it's far from being universal as many programs need specific parameter tweaks to work correctly.